Baseball bat wielding man claims self defence

Peter Hardwick
Reporter
Peter started in 1976 as apprentice typesetter/comp and has 32 years with The Chronicle in three stints (in between working/holidays in UK/Europe, Brisbane and Melbourne). Entered editorial from comp room in 1996.

A MAN who admitted striking another man across the head with a baseball bat leaving him with a fractured skull has told a court he had acted in self defence.

Taking the witness stand in his own trial, Konnor Azrael Millet, 20, told Toowoomba District Court he had agreed to accompany friend, and co-accused, Alexander James Maynard, 19, on a drive to Highfields about 8pm New Year's Eve 2015.

He said Maynard had told him he was going to pick up some money owed to him and though his friend didn't tell him what the money was for he knew at the time Maynard sold drugs.

The pair was joined by friends Dylan Chad and Michael King for the drive in Chad's 4WD dual cab utility and Millet said he had thrown his baseball bat, which had been used to hit apricots off a tree in Maynard's yard, into the car before leaving.

After arriving at the Mather St residence in Highfields, Chad had alighted from the car and walked toward the front of the house where he picked up a baseball bat.

Millet said he had remained in the car talking with King as Maynard got out.

After seeing Chad open the door of a Navara dual cab ute parked nearby, a man he later realised was Aiden Formosa who owned that car, came from the house asking what they were doing.

He said Formosa was getting aggressive and took the baseball bat from Chad and poked it into the chest of Maynard with force.

Upon seeing this, Millet said he grabbed his baseball bat and approached to hear Formosa say "You've got three seconds to get out of here before I start cracking skulls".

Millet said he told Formosa to "Stay away from my mates" to which the other man replied "What are you going to do?"

He said Formosa had then swung the bat at him but he had ducked and, regaining his feet, swung his bat at Formosa striking him in the head.

He said Formosa stiffened and fell to the ground.

Asked by his barrister Peter Richards how he had felt before he struck Formosa, Millet replied: "I was terrified, he was intimidating... everything happened so quickly".

A second male, who he now knew to be Kane Parton, approached to see how his friend was but when he appeared to lunge forward to grab the baseball bat on the ground, Millet said he had struck him before getting back into the utility and the four had driven away.

Millet said he threw the baseball bat out of the car window en route back to Toowoomba.

Millet and Maynard have pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm while armed and in company.

The court has heard Formosa, who has given evidence at the trial, was taken to hospital that night and treated for a fractured skull, a cut to his left ear and bleeding within the skull.